On a drizzly Monday lunchtime in Angela Eagle’s constituency of Wallasey, in Merseyside, reaction to the MP’s decision to challenge Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership ranged from total apathy to abject fury.

“I don’t think she’s very highly thought of around here,” said Anthony Zausmer, owner of the Coasters cafe in the seaside town of New Brighton. “I think people vote for her simply because they vote Labour and that’s it. If they put up a stuffed monkey, they’d vote for them.” He wasn’t a fan of Jeremy Corbyn, but said he didn’t think Eagle would make an effective leader of the Labour party.

Asked what the reaction was locally to the news that Eagle would stand against Corbyn, Zausmer said: “I think there’s apathy to be honest. I don’t think many people will care one way or the other, but I would imagine that my feeling about her not being an effective leader will be shared. She’s showed no leadership skills as a local MP.”

Patrick O’Gorman, 65, a Labour member who had popped in to the cafe, didn’t hide his disdain for his local MP. He said the 172 MPs who had voted in favour of a motion of no confidence in Corbyn were trying to “cheat their way into the Labour leadership”.

O’Gorman is a firm supporter of Corbyn. “I am a fan of his principles and a fan of what he does for the people, and Angela Eagle has done zilch,” he said.

The constituency of Wallasey was Conservative until 1992, when Eagle won the seat from the Tory government minister Lynda Chalker. Eagle doubled her majority in the last election, winning more than 60% of the vote, but now she is facing a vote of no confidence from her own constituency party, which is largely pro-Corbyn.

On Monday morning Paul Davies, the Wallasey CLP vice-chair, told the BBC that 360 new members had joined the local party since 24 June. “I don’t think we have ever had that many entryists, even back in the old heydays of the militants,” he said. “Are there 500,000 entryists in the Labour party? Well, if so … that’s democracy.”

Zausmer voted for the first time in his life in the EU referendum, when he backed leave, and he said Andrea Leadsom’s decision to drop out of the Conservative leadership race was a disappointment to him. “We need a breath of fresh air and somebody from outside the political establishment who has business experience and has some sensible ideas,” he said.

Jacqui Youde, 64, who works at an opticians across the road, usually votes either Conservative or Ukip, but said she could be persuaded to vote Labour if Eagle becomes leader. “[Corbyn] was an unusual choice for leader anyway and I’ve never really been a fan, but I think Angela Eagle would be good. She doesn’t come across as an approachable person, but I think she’d get the job done,” she said.

Car dealer Peter Foreman thinks Eagle would fare better than Corbyn in a general election battle against Theresa May. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Peter Foreman, a 62-year-old car salesman in Wallasey, said he had always voted for Eagle and thought she would fare better than Corbyn in a general election battle against Theresa May, but felt she had picked the wrong time to mount a leadership challenge. “Maybe she’s the right person for the job, but it’s the wrong time,” he said.

Of Corbyn, he said: “I think he has some strange beliefs, but I suppose he’s a socialist and he’s got his own views and I think they should just leave him to it. The whole political scene is a mess at the moment.”

Foreman said the prospect of another female Conservative prime minister made him nervous because of his memories of life in Merseyside under Margaret Thatcher.

“I know that just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she’s going to be another Thatcher, but you just get that feeling,” he said. “Because a lot of stuff disappeared [under Thatcher], and May doesn’t come across as a caring person in my eyes.”